Thursday, March 8, 2012

Have We Really Evolved???

On this faithful day in 1669 Mt. Etna erupted on the island of Sicily. It rumbled, it grumbled, it burped, burped burped and then it threw up(we've all done it, think porcelain bus). And what do you suppose all the fine people from Catania living around the volcano do... they pulled up easy chairs, bucket 'O beers, some smokes and kicked back and watched the show. What a show it was!! Along comes Diego de Pappalardo and his band of fifty lava loppers. Diego shouted "Afferra la tua mucca nascondere ragazzi screpolature e godersi em down! Stiamo andando a correre su questa montagna e qui deviare questo Lava! " ( "Grab your cow hide chaps boys and soak em down! We're going to run up this here mountain and divert this Lava!") With metal rods, picks and shovels the boys managed to poke a hole in the hard lava and low and behold make the lava head west!! Yeah Lardo! Then along come the boyz from Paterno(no not happy valley) and what do they say about the whole thing. "Non si può fare che la testa il nostro modo di lava! ora dobbiamo a calci in culo!"(You can't make that lava head our way! now we have to kick your ass!) Hey they said it... and they did it. So the hole plugged up and the Lava headed back toward Catania and the good people of Catania watched it come screaming toward them at a break neck speed!!! The lava was flowing at such a tremendous speed that several weeks later when the lava reached the city 17,000 Catanians were killed! What...??? Wait a minute... it took several weeks for the lava to reach the city of Catania and 17,000 people were killed??? Oh, I see... no, actually I don't see. They didn't leave! There were only 20,000 residents in the city at the time(3,000 that survived were in Rome on Vacation). The moral of the story... the next time you hear a rumble, grumble, burp, burp, burp... don't wait to get hit with the spew help put the hair back and then get out of the way.